(I’m) very hungry. It’s my sixth year and I haven’t been in there once.

Jack Newnes

St Kilda wingman Jack Newnes arrived at Linen House Centre at the end of 2011, just months after the Saints fell to Sydney in the first week of the finals.

Since then, St Kilda hasn’t featured in September. Instead, the Saints have rebuilt from the bottom, rising steadily to be on the cusp of playing finals last year.

In that time, Newnes has played 91 games – the last 69 straight – to be an integral part of the nucleus of St Kilda’s list.

And now, on the eve of the 2017 season, Newnes says the Saints are ready to launch into the new campaign against Melbourne at Etihad Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

“It’s a very exciting game. I know the Dee’s will be coming out and throwing everything at us and vice versa, we will be throwing everything at them, so it will be a big game,” Newnes told reporters at a press conference on Monday afternoon.

“We’ve been building for a couple of years now and hopefully we can keep building throughout this year.

“There’s a couple of things we want to work on; our interstate trips haven’t been that great so we’re just trying to bridge the gap between our best performances and our worst ones. If we can do that we’ll just have to see what happens at the end of the year.”